Raise, Other Employee Issues on Tap

Congress returns to work this week facing a pile of unfinished business and a goal of adjourning for the year in early October. Among federal employment and retirement issues, one of the first orders of business will be for the Senate to take up the fiscal 2003 Treasury-Postal appropriations bill (S-2740), which provides a 4.1 percent general schedule average raise in January and which would cap increases for wage grade employees at the GS average amount. The House already has passed its version (HR-5120), which contains similar pay raise provisions. Also still to be determined is how much of the total raise will be paid as across-the-board raise and how much divided up as locality pay.